Jamie Dimon perhaps is no longer the Teflon CEO he once appeared to be. A Yahoo columnist would like to stick him with consequences of his call in a recent speech at the Chamber of Commerce for regulators to be very cautious on capital requirements. He warned that capital ratios set too high would be "the nail in our coffin for big American banks."

Regulators should rebuff the calls movement in the U.K. and elsewhere in Europe for banks to hold up to 15 percent of capital or more. He was quoted in the Financial Times: "If you want to set it so high that no big bank ever goes bankrupt...I think that would greatly diminish growth. If you think that's helping growth, it's not." He said that a 7 percent capital ratio would be adequate.

The Yahoo columnist, Daniel Gross, doubts that a vibrant banking sector requires a highly leveraged one. On top of that, "it's just plain bad manners for a banker of any sort to complain about government interference in his business. In fact, it's astonishing how much the success and survival of every bank--including J.P. Morgan--rests on government interference. The Federal Reserve helped facilitate J.P. Morgan Chase's 2008 acquisition of Bear Stearns for next to nothing by taking on $30 billion of Bear's junky assets. The FDIC, which insures deposits at J.P. Morgan Chase and other banks, in the fall of 2008 started a program that let banks issue debt guaranteed by the FDIC. J.P. Morgan took part in the program, and had $40 billion outstanding in late 2009. J.P. Morgan Chase, like other banks, borrows tons of money from the Federal Reserve at very low rates." He thinks JPMorgan shuld be more grateful. Do you agree?

For more:
- here's the column

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